Astral Ascent, a 2D platformer rogue-lite on PC and consoles with four worlds to escape, if you can beat the Zodiacs, 12 mighty bosses!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
PvP Arena, public beta and new spells coming!
3 months ago
– Fri, Jan 19, 2024 at 01:57:12 PM
Hello everyone!
We are back from holidays and we are working on our next update coming on February 12!
PvP Arena and public beta
We have made great progress on the PvP Arena and it turned out even better than we anticipated, it is so fun to play! We will explain better everything related to it in the update news but for now here is a work-in-progress video.
The PvP Arena is now available for you to try and we are really interested to get your feedback related to it!
As a safety measure, we would recommend you to make a manual copy of your saves before selecting the public beta. For that copy the content in :
Windows (C:)
Users
- Your Windows User Name -
My Games
Astral Ascent
Number of your Steam Account
- Copy the content there to somewhere else -
To select the public beta, open Steam then :
Right click on Astral Ascent in your Library
Click on Properties
Open Betas tab
Select "public.beta"
The public beta already has a change related to Telescope making it offline now.
New Spells
We have also started working on 5 new spells per hero, these new spells feel very cool to use and we tried to make some of them move enemies around as it was something often requested by the community!
Other Changes Coming
We took time to read all the reviews, all the suggestions and bugs reports we received and we will try to fix and improve as much as possible of these beginning with the most requested ones.
For example we will be fixing the issue making Telescope unavailable in sone countries (and consoles) for this update but we have little time for fixes for this update so more fixes and improvements like improving the synergy between loots during a run should be following in a patch dedicated to improvements in March 2024.
Backerkit Survey
We are finalizing the survey and should be able to send it this month. We are also talking a lot with Limited Run Games recently and things are moving in the right direction to prepare every physical rewards!
Wishing you a great day and the best for 2024!
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Astral 1.1.0 Update is live on Steam and Consoles!
4 months ago
– Thu, Dec 21, 2023 at 07:57:15 AM
Astral Ascent 1.1.0 is live!
Let's dive into the details of what is new in this new update!
We just loved the community calling us an "anime roguelite" (some of the late-game cinematics are really inspired by some animes!) and we decided to make a Japanese voice-over version of all the dialogs. It was a lot of work with the 7800+ dialog lines and 27 voiced characters but we assembled a great team to deal with this task and we are super happy with the result. Each character has so much personality and it is an always renewed joy to discover all the dialogs in a different language. You can listen to some of these new recordings below -
You will have a launching screen to choose the voice-over language one time now, we were afraid all this work would go unnoticed if we did not add a specific screen for it.
BrazilianPortuguese Translation
Having members of our team from Brazil, we are very happy to have the game translated in Brazilian Portuguese!
Small Astral Dragon
We pay a very close attention to the community feedback about the game and one of the most requested change is being able to have more control over the builds we are creating. With this in mind, we added a new Zim-Zim upgrade named "Small Astral Dragon". (also works in co-op!)
At first rank you have the choice between 2 Common Auras and at last rank you have the choice between 2 Mythic Auras. Everytime, Auras have 20% to be of an higher rarity level so you can sometimes start with an Astral Aura. Though we did not want to encourage what we consider being an unfun behavior - relaunching the game many times to get a different Aura - we made the game remember which Aura should appear.
We placed this Dragon at the very beginning of the first intro room so you can have an aura before taking the level up statue and have an initial target build to focus on. But do not forget, this is a simple first step into your build, if you started with a poison Aura and only find freeze oriented elements you can switch to it! As Bear Grylls said : Improvise. Adapt. Overcome!
As an addition for easier builds, we have added another gambit slot at the merchant in Andromeda's bar. It is not fun to reset many times the choices in order to find the right affinities and it should be a little easier now!
The Telluric Yalee
Another feedback we received was not getting frequently enough the spells you prefer. Instead of garanting certain spells or banning some others, we implemented a Yalee in the Telluric room, this Yalee appears when you defeated the Master once (in Destiny Level 0) and can reset the spells choices for a small amount of Sun Pieces. We kept the amount low so it always feel fine to use and not frustrating.
We have been looking for a moment now on what could we do with extra Sun Pieces collected. It was supposed to be the Small Astral Dragon for a large amount of Sun Pieces but we felt like it was too important to have it unlocked early and to have this starting Aura in all runs so we reworked very recently to implement it as a Zim-Zim upgrade and we will try to find something else to do with the Extra Sun Pieces in the future!
New Explorations Room
We added 10 new exploration rooms level design variations for each world in this update
We have made a poll on our Discord Server to know what you would like to see implemented in the game and the results really surprised us!
We created a Roadmap (see below) to take these feedback into consideration.
A - Metaprogression content - making more heroes spells as soon as possible for February 2024 update, we have already created some and we tried to focus on making as many spells as possible focusing on creating gameplay like moving enemies or heroes etc as you feedbacked us.
B - Ingame content - nothing planned for now given the poll results
C - New games modes - PvP is planned for February 2024 and a new very cool mode is coming for Q4 2024, giving it a low priority given this poll
D - Harder challenges - nothing planned for now given the poll results
E - Exploration runs variety - 10 new exploration rooms level design variations available now! We made it a priority due to the poll.
F - Combat runs variety - we planned an altervative world to come alongside Yamat update on Q3 2024!
Talking a bit more about the future below.
Damage Meter System
This is the most biggest change of this update, it registers all the damage you input to any enemies for your current room and globally (also works in co-op). You can pause the game to open the "Damage Meter" option in the menu to see this -
There is also an overlay option that is "Off" by default and you can activate it to show the top 5 elements of either the global damage of your run or of the current room and it looks like this -
For those worried, it's not overlapping with much elements from the interface, we limited it to 5 elements showcased at once.
This new system is inspired by mmorpg addons making it possible to see what causes damage at any time in your build. Our goal is to make you fully understand your build, how it works, how it synergies and what deals damage in it.
We think that's not something very common but we have a lot of synergizing elements that we think it's really important in our game. Even if we made our very best during the development, this new tool is probably going to show a lot of unbalanced elements so you can expect changes based on our observations in the coming months.
Lisibility and Readability
Among the reported feedback from the community, lisibility is something that we see a lot, we made so many changes regarding this during the development but we are still not there yet.
Most of games similar to Astral Ascent use a dark background because it makes everything stands out instantly but we really wanted the game to be colorful, it is definitively more work though!
In this update we increased lisibility again, we reduce some visuals FX, we set as many as possible behind everything, add some transparency on elements and so on. We have also added an option to remove Damage Numbers if you don't want them being visible on the screen.
What is next ?
We hope we will enjoy this update, as a reminder here is our 2024 Roadmap if you missed it -
We are going to take a well deserved break for the holidays season! Things have been really intense during 2023 with frequent major updates. You can check this link to see all the newsletters we released on Steam since 2020 to see how much the game evolved and how much we progressed as a team!
For now the game keeps selling well and for now it gives a nice future for the game and for our studio and we really appreciate players following us as developers and not just for a specific game, that goes right to our hearts!
That's the last news of this very intense year, 2024 should be easier for us. I will sound like a broken record but thanks again for following us, sharing and caring about Astral Ascent and we will keep you updated about what is next for the game in January!
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We will send the survey for Physical Edition in January with an estimated shipping by Limited Run Games early Q2 2024
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Have an excellent holiday season everyone and thanks again!
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
2024 Roadmap + incoming update!
4 months ago
– Thu, Dec 14, 2023 at 07:25:03 AM
Hello everyone!
Today we celebrate our 1 month anniversary since the 1.0 release 🎉
We are still overwhelmed by all the positive feedback we receive, thanks so much for that!
This reception motivated us to keep improving Astral Ascent so we decided to publish our 2024 Roadmap that was influenced by the answers we received from a poll we made on our Discord server.
The Roadmap can still change but will remain similar to this. But before all this new content we would like to focus a bit more on what is coming up next week, on December 21st - the Damage Meter Update!
A new Damage Meter system so you will know exactly what deals what damage at anytime.
Full Japanese Voice-Over, "anime roguelite" is becoming real
Translation of the game in PT/BR
10 new exploration rooms per worlds
A mini dragon in first Intro Room giving an Aura choice right away to orient your build (Zim-Zim upgrade)
Possibility to reset Telluric Ruins spells with Sun Pieces
A lot of debug and balancing
Complete damage meter menu
Small damage overlay of either global damage / current room damage or turned off.
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We think this system is something very interesting to implement for people enjoying making builds. We are having tons of fun playing with it to see what is making damage and how synergies/builds work together but of course this is also going to show what is too weak or too strong so you can expect a lot of balancing to happen after this update!
We are reading all your feedback about the game, we saw a lot of feedback about lisibility and we improved a lot of things regarding it (including a new option to turn off the damage numbers) and the difficulty to create coherent builds (we added some elements above but we have also added one more gambit altar at the Merchant for example)
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For physical editions, we will try to send the surveys from Backerkit as soon as possible with an estimated delivery by Limited Run Games for end of Q1 2024 or early Q2 2024.
Thanks a lot and have a fantastic day!
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Astral Ascent 1.0 is out now on PC / PS4 / PS5 / Switch! 🔥
5 months ago
– Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 07:56:49 AM
1.0 is out now!
After 4.5 years of work with 18 months of Early Access, we are very proud to share with you all the 1.0 version of Astral Ascent! We gave our very best during the whole development and you witnessed the evolution of the game that changed so much from Kickstarter demo to 1.0!
We truly hope you will enjoy this version as much as we did (we play the game a lot as we are having so much fun on it!) and be sure we will do updates on the game and we would love to do many of them, the more success the game will have the more we will do so fingers crossed!
We also want to take this opportunity to tell you once more how important was all your support during the Early Access, it gave us a lot of motivation and inspiration, thanks for that <3
You can see below the Launch Trailer to celebrate the Release on PC / PS4 / PS5 and Nintendo Switch!
If you were already playing the game on Early Access, the 1.0 comes with a lot of changes! More than 1000 lines of change to read in our 1.0 Patch Notes.
The Master
You will finally be able to face The Master, a final confrontation to escape from the astral prison! We do not want to spoil anything about it but there is a lot about this final boss, it took us as much time as the 3 other Zodiacs combined.
Beating The Master will also lead you to the 17 different Endings of the game!
Aries
Aries is super friendly but she will not hold her attacks on you!
Cancer
Cancer is the leader of the Orphnées family, he fights with a bird named Basileus.
Gemini
Gemini are special, expect an intense fight facing multiple threats!
Star Guardians - Monoceros and Sculptor
Monoceros and Sculptor are joining Pegasus, Lupus, Draco and Hydra as minibosses you can encounter during your escape attempts!
We think it's important for these Fights to not feel too repetitive. You can only face 3 of them maximum per escape attempt. They hit hard but we want you to pick these fights only if you feel comfortable during your run!
Monoceros is based on ice attacks!
Sculptor creates weapons to attack you!
Animated Cinematic
We now have a traditional cinematic introduction when launching the game, giving a mood and first impression we absolutely love. The animations of Tokkun Studio fit perfectly the music of Dale North for an epic introduction to the Astral Ascent universe.
Reworked Introduction and Tutorial
We think the game introduction was not exposing the story and universe enough, we have created a new introduction cinematic!
It is also an introduction to Ayla who did not have a proper pixel-art cinematic yet, it comes with a complete change of Ayla personality and backstory!
For the tutorial itself, we thought the previous one was too static and frustrating because we created a game focused on aerial movement and the tutorial was forcing you to not move much. The new tutorial gives you a total control over your movements from the very start now!
Event Horizon
You will not be automatically killed when accessing the Event Horizon (5th world), instead you will have many elements to prepare before the final confrontation!
Mid-run Saves
This might be the most requested features from the 18 months of Early Access, everytime the icon below appears, you can open your options and safely quit to main menu and resume later.
Combined to Steam cloud you can even do a run on your PC and continue your run on your Steamdeck for example!
Maximum level you can reach per escape attempt is 12, once level 8 reached you have 4 perks for your Signature spell and 4 for your Basic attacks but now each level above level 8 allows you to replace one perk to optimize your build even more at the end of your runs.
Stats Window
It was not easy to know how your current build is impacting your base stats, now you will be able to see the stats anytime when opening your inventory or all the time by activating an option in the Gameplay menu.
Itinerant Peddlers
We have made the itinerant peddlers much more interesting. As the spells did not have much and no gambits on them, in late-game it felt not right to pick new spells.
Now prices are much more varied and spells can have gambits on them, impacting their prices up to 2000+ Quartz a spell. You can also find and buy astral Gambits there making Quartz currency much more interesting that it was!
We have also changed the altars to see the elements of spells and the rarity of gambits for a better lisibility.
Storytelling Elements
Narration has been extended and reworked a lot, there is a lot of changed dialogs and many new types of dialogues. For example you can now have self conversations on benches and heroes talk to each others.
Most Memory Fragment have been modified too to give a more complete story of every characters.
Co-op icons
We have given a lot of attention to co-op, one example is these icons that have been requested a lot by the community! But there is many other changes making the co-op experience more enjoyable!
Digital Rewards
For Digital Rewards, you should have already received everything. If you don't, please follow the steps in #kickstarter-rewards channel on our Discord Server. The Reward list is -
Digital Copy for Steam (available for everyone who pre-ordered a physical edition)
Digital Copy for Console (PS4/PS5/Switch)
Digital OST (Steam Key)
Digital Artbook (Steam Key)
Digital Dark Devotion (Steam Key)
Get your Discord role
If you have any questions about that or require help, either post a message in the #support channel of the Discord server (community has answers to a lot of already asked questions) or send an email at [email protected], we will do our best to support you even if we will probably be very busy today.
It gets asked a lot so, for Artbook, the way to open it is installing Astral Ascent on Steam and unlock Artbook DLC -> then right click on Astral Ascent in your library -> properties -> explore local files -> there will be an Astral Ascent Artbook pdf.
Physical Rewards
All physical rewards are planned for Q1 2024, you will get a survey before shipping to select the platform you want and update your shipping address.
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Wishing you the best time in the game and thanks again for making this possible <3
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
1.0 Patch Notes, Digital Rewards and Artbook sneak peek!
6 months ago
– Thu, Nov 09, 2023 at 10:22:22 AM
Hello everyone!
There is only 5 days left before Astral Ascent 1.0 releases on PC/Consoles!
As release day should be a pretty busy day, we decided to release the 1.0 patch notes today so anyone wanting to dive into the release content can take time to do so. It is so large (more than 1000 lines) that we needed 2 complete Steam updates to have enough space for it!
This is by far our biggest content release for the game (we definitively forgot some of the changes) and we hope you like everything we have been working on for this 1.0! We would like to thank once again everyone from the community who took time to report bugs and make suggestions, so many elements have been changed thanks to that, thanks a lot! ✨
DIGITAL REWARDS
I am taking this opportunity to let you know that we have emailed more than 2300 of you about their digital rewards (everyone who does not have a digital copy to select), if you did not receive an email you can check your spam box or ask for help in the support channel from our Discord server or through Kickstarter, we are contacting anyone having troubles and we are doing our very best to deliver every rewards before next tuesday.
Here is a small FAQ about digital rewards -
Can I switch my steam key with a console key?
Sadly no!
I activated the Artbook DLC but I don't find it, where is it?
The Digital Artbook will be visible at Steam game folder as followed - right click on Astral Ascent on Steam -> browse local files -> "Astral Ascent Artbook.pdf", it will be live on November 14th at 5PM CET / 8 AM PST
How can I get my rewards without using Discord?
We have created a Kickstarter Bot that distributes automatically the Digital Rewards on our Discord server to save us time. Some of you said they would prefer not use Discord if possible, we tried to find an alternative but could not. If you do not want to use Discord, you can send a private message to us on Kickstarter or an email specifying the email address you used during the Kickstarter campaign at contact@hibernian-workshop and we will send your rewards directly but if you have the possibility of using Discord it would be very appreciated as handling manually each case takes us time.
How do I use the Kickstarter bot?
Starting from the beginning, if you react to the message in #kickstarter-rewards the bot will automatically send you a private message (you must allow non-friends to send you messages in this server). It will ask you to verify your email. Once email verification has been sent (double-check spam folder), you click a button in the bot provides to input your email verification code. After that, you can receive your rewards.
I reacted to the message in #kickstarter-rewards, but received no message from the bot. How do I get the helper to DM me?
Change your Privacy Settings in this server to allow direct messages (Unsure if they need to re-react to the post in #kickstarter-rewards)
Where is my 5th character free DLC key?
5th character DLC is planned in 2024, we have some updates in mind to release before.
Why are my console codes not working?
Console codes will be working once game goes live on November 14th, 5PM CET /8 AM PST.
How can I change my name in the credits?
The Kickstarter Assistant on Discord has a button for you to change it as many times as you want but tomorrow is the last day to do that. Also please note that the changes will only appear after first post-launch update.
Artbook Sneak Peek
Finally, here is a sneak peek of the Astral Ascent Artbook we just finished, available very soon!
